


(not a)Monster

by Houjuu



Series: Stohn Oneshots [10]
Category: The Lorien Legacies - All Media Types, The Lorien Legacies - Pittacus Lore
Genre: Alternate UAO ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bertrand Is Never Dead In My Fics, M/M, Oblivious Gay Assholes, Reflective rather than Plot based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houjuu/pseuds/Houjuu
Summary: 'Bright, blonde hair with regarding blue eyes, just like the legend would have him, the ruling elder Nine had only dreamed of, before them.Number Four.Long, black hair with deep, dark eyes, in a striking likeness to the greatest, absolute hell beast to be born on Lorien.Number Nine.'Nine used to believe he was a monster. Now he wants to save John from becoming one.





	(not a)Monster

Number Nine knew his dreams meant something. Since he was younger and well in the times of when Sandor still ruled his every say, Nine would dream of both victory and chaos. He would duel Setrakus Ra for the sake of a beloved princess, cursing every part of the monster’s being with every blow he dealt. He fought hard against legions of Mogadorian soldiers single handedly with flowing long hair and the rest of his Garde allies begging for his every order and blessing. They became a form of escape, phantasmagorian paradise that was just a little bit of shut eye away. 

Setrakus began to taunt him in every dream, spoke to him as though he could see and sculpt every one of Nine’s precious thoughts. He hadn’t known that Ra was actually speaking to him, was cutting him deep and watching his every mess fall apart. 

He continued to see Ra even after his imprisonment. Even after the abuse of West Virginia. 

He tormented him with images of a managed, reanimated Sandor being beheaded, of his imaginings of his fellow Garde screaming to him for help, of Maddie proving her innocence and begging him to take her back as she's being pulled away by Mogadorian soldiers.

With a blonde man bathed in light and flames coating his hands defeating Ra only to suddenly turning into black sludge with a sickening scream.

Nine stopped trying to escape to his dreams after that, going days without proper rest to avoid the circus that Setrakus Ra made his mind into.

When the compound was under attack and his eyes met Number Four for the first time, amongst the rain of debris and smog with his golden hair and determined eyes shown even in the darkest of the prison grounds, he learned then that his dreams were nightmares. 

Bright, blonde hair with regarding blue eyes, just like the legend would have him, the ruling elder Nine had only dreamed of, before them. 

Number Four.

Long, black hair with deep, dark eyes, in a striking likeness to the greatest, absolute hell beast to be born on Lorien. 

Number Nine.

Not even he knew his eye color anymore, just another piece to show how much of himself Nine had already lost. It was thick as mud and colored like a mistake. Once, he had never cared for those kind of details. 

Once he never cared that the color of his hair was beyond dark brown with ends hazardly split into loose strands and tangles. He had liked the way it fell from his face and framed his every thought and the way it looked when it was pulled into a mess behind his head. Hair was one of the few things he could have absolute control in his life; he could keep it as long or short as he wished, it wasn’t up to someone long pasted or a villain waiting to cut open every vein in his body. But, the problem that always had remained was that his hair is _black._  

John’s hair is golden blonde.

They were meant to clash and bring the world to its knees.  

They began to fight early, too early Nine thought at first, as he over missteps every boundary and emotional wall John has put up. They were one of the same and entirely different all at the same time. They bared their own scars, so soon into their soldier hood. Free, then caught, then freed once again, the pair became lost in the city of Nine’s former glory. 

When they continuously clashed and spat only virulent words at each other, Nine’s deepest fears only grew. His tendencies only became worse. He forced himself to believe that he hated John, hate every single part of him that differed; there was nothing left to sympathize with when he felt so different from Number Four. When he spoke those words and claimed a heir that could have easily belonged to any of the other surviving Garde, Nine thought he had snapped entirely as he held the other boy in a tight grip by his neck over the railing of a great city with all intention of letting go. He wanted to see him struggle, see him in fragility, and to admit he wasn’t going to be the reason for Nine’s downfall.

A silent part of him wanted to see him die, but what surprised him was how voiceless that darker side of himself had become.

In the face of killing his soon to be greatest adversary, Number Nine collapsed inside under the weight of those pieces of himself he thought Setrakus Ra killed in those dreams. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be the reason. So he pulled Number Four back in and felt the guilt of letting himself became darkness begin to eat him alive. 

Maybe he could be saved after all.

Was he to become the next monster, the evil that wore others lives across his skin like prizes after they were over? He came so close to committing that treason, to donning the first of many trophies. Nine stopped himself; perhaps he has a chance to revisit fate and turn her hands away from him.

_ But soon it’ll only begin,  _ that cruel, little voice had whispered sickeningly in his thoughts. Soon he would become the real evil.

They clashed less after. His hands shook with endless nerves and he wanted to disappear from sight anytime Four so much as glances at him, but Nine managed to swallow every ounce of his pride to apologize, fearing he might let out every one of those broken pieces of himself with every word. 

He replays that night in his head a lot.

How John never cared for what happened, just sat and listened to Nine string along an anxious, broken apology he hoped sounded as frightened as he felt.

_ “I want to be friends. And I’m glad you’re here,” _ tumbled nervously from his lips and he expected to be ignored or brushed off.

He had never expected a reply.

_ “I’m glad I’m here too, thanks.”  _

The discarded blonde hair ruffled after their fight and light blushes of bruising forming on his jawline reminded him of his flaws, but with blue eyes with a range of emotion wider than any valley he’d visited or dreamed about felt like he'd suddenly been given a reason. That soft smile Nine caught a glimpse of before he couldn't bare the simple, warm interaction anymore and hastily turned to run away from. 

Maybe that was the first time his heart truly skipped a beat. Maddy couldn't begin to compare to the warmth that John Smith was radiating off to him. 

He just hoped he could catch onto that skip before it chose to take a few tries with his feelings.

The Garde unite and Nine had to stop every part of him of counting each of them, remember how many of them have died. 

How he’d already almost killed another one of them.

How he still looks like the mirror of Setrakus Ra.

Number Eight had thick, curly black hair, but his eyes glowed with a precious green and his presence welcomed any and all power to him. Eight’s hair had been far darker than Nine’s, but everything about him was far beyond even the opposite end of whatever was brewing underneath Nine’s skin.

He was certain that Number Five saw it for what it was, though. 

Five had wanted him dead most of all. He had no explanation for the reason Number Five sought him out, sneered at him except for their initial meeting where Nine had been cruel. He was bold and rough around the edges, but not especially cruel; he hadn't liked the way Five tensed up when they made eye contact for the first time. He'd seen something in Nine that wasn't worth working for the Garde; he'd seen the evil. The other boy had feint his alliance with the Mogadorians to chill the true evil that was Nine. Five sought him out to fight, to react in a way that would show his true self to everyone. 

Nine lashed out at Five the way the other boy wanted him to. Five broke him the way Five seemed to have always wanted to, like the other Garde knew there was something inside of Nine he had to break into pieces. Nine quickly storms away with a broken hand and some broken hope, knowing full well that Five’s mission to humiliate him in front of the others, to out his dark history in front of Eight and Marina, was successful. Five defeated him; lesser evils, after all, would defeat the greater evils in their story. Five might be cunning and brash, but he was not the cold, cruel thing that ran through Nine’s entire being.

Nine was the loser. He would remain the loser.

Nine was the enemy, because only a being who existed in the lowest pits would be as cruel enough to assume someone else was eviler than he was to cover up exactly who he was. He was the enemy, the traitor, the monster waiting for the final straw that would reveal the darker nature within him that thirsted for absolute chaos and control.

And John healed him anyway. 

He was certain that the other Garde(His archrival? Polarity? Perhaps… friend?) detected exactly the monster that lay beneath the brown skin and black eyes of Number Nine. He was certain the moment he bursted into the room that John sat with Sam that he would be exposed for the villain he was meant to become.

John stood to counteract him. To disengage him and remove him once and for all, Nine was certain. The painful twist in his gut was indescribable, the fear and guilt pushing into every pulse of his bloodstream. 

This was the moment. He would become that demon now. 

Number Nine couldn’t attempt to strike Number Four if he had even wanted to, and the way John’s deep blue eyes registered Nine’s body language showed he knew that.

Lorics don’t hope, it ends in massacre, but the brown skinned boy was damned if he didn’t recognize the fuzz in his heart the minute it flared up and died in a flash.

But then. 

The blonde boy before him smiled softly, almost disbelieving, and shook his head.

Then, he took Nine’s swollen hand into his warm, gentle care and brought the other Garde back into the present with a few quick pushes of his legacy and soft scolding.

Nine couldn’t hold back the smile that crossed his face, at John’s teasing as much as the feeling of his soft, pale hand tenderly cradling the bruised flesh of his knuckles. 

John’s smile, Nine realized then, could bring light to any form of darkness, even the kind rooted inside of a person, inside of someone like him. 

If there was something for Nine after all of this, let it be, by some string of change, he doesn’t become the reason John’s smile dims out.

When Nine reemerged from his safe place with John, he was ready to rechallenge Five, but he tried something new. He wouldn’t challenge him to a physical match, but rather one of wits and standoffs. His words would become his weapons once more against the boy of lesser evils. 

Five’s insecurities were quick and easy to find in the beginning, so let those weaknesses prove to his fellow Garde that Nine didn’t need violence to solve himself. Until the time called for them to face off against Mogadorians, Nine would wait to throw another meaningless punch at another of his kind or his allies.

That wouldn’t last. Because Nine hoped to be right and suddenly wished he were wrong when his back roughly collided with a tree in the density of the Floridian swamps and the heat of Five’s murderous rage turned full front onto him.

Five was the villian. Five was the monster.

Five vocalized his betrayal. Using his example but in a way that only makes sense to him, Nine used his voice as well, wielding cold words like his staff, taunting Five for every little thing he could remember watching the shorter boy shake in anger over. 

Nine was going to become the hero he’d always hoped to become since the nightmares of Ra had even started. Five’s blade glittered in the night, his accelerated speed and legacy of flight giving him the launch towards Nine in such a blinding fit of rage that Nine could have laughed at the truth dead set in front of him.

But, until the end, Nine felt he was still the Villain.

Because Five killed Eight instead. 

Eight, who had all of the world to touch with his kindred spirits and Eight, who had a girl that found every pure piece of him and loved it completely, was gone because he tried to fight back without being an animal. He had nothing that could deal damage, nothing he could touch that wouldn’t break himself or someone else. Nine’s cursed mouth killed one of their only lights. Eight, with hair as black as his but a heart made of nothing but gold, died in place of the ultimate evil by the lesser evil.

Number Eight had thick, curly black hair, but his eyes glowed with a precious green and his presence welcomed any and all power to him. Eight radiated the only purity that was left of Lorien; he was the only purity until he was slain by Five.

Nine vowed to be the reason behind the end of Five’s life that day. If there was any ounce of light in him at all, then he would use it to avenge Eight like he deserved to be. Marina started it for him, now all he asks for is something to allow him to end it.  

He would make Five pay for what he did to Eight. 

When his eyes met that screen of the newscast, showing his childhood home engulfed in smoke and surrounded by choppers, he knew he had to do more than avenge Eight.

When he felt the cold dread that they had no way of knowing the fate of the others inside of the penthouse except for excruciating pain, he wouldn’t hold himself back any longer. The wait alone was enough to awaken that evil dwelling deep inside of him.

Nine would make Five pay for pulling him away from John. For making him unable to protect that special person. 

He remembers how the sound of John’s voice after so long had brought him down from that peak and held him onto the plateau of his climb into chaos. 

Perhaps that’s why their reunion was brief. Despite each and every one of his jokes, the ones Nine carefully uses to mask his constant festering anxiety, the energy between them had felt too formal. Too practiced. 

John was forcing some part of himself out to keep the peace and Nine couldn't redden his hands if the blonde Garde kept looking at him like that, unable to hide the sea of conflicting emotions in those blue eyes.

Because Nine knew his heart had laid on killing Five and proving he was the true nightmare all along.

Because Nine was so scared of being himself, of hoping and feeling around the boy who’d be the one destined to kill him. 

Time and time again, he still had felt he failed to stay good, but now he had a reason to be a monster. Finally, his chance to prove he wasn't the villain of their story and it was Number Five who took that role, but all he could do was piece together how this would shape him into the animal the others knew he would be. It shouldn't have been hard to prove a traitor was more than a nuisance, but Nine had always made everything into a challenge, including his own fate.

He tried to end it. He tried to become the hero that destiny was so against him becoming. But he caused destruction in his wake. 

Every punch he threw, every counter strike, put Five through the walls of each building or tore the cement off of the streets lining the entire cityscape. He had no remorse, no sense of awareness, just the desire to watch someone he desperately hoped to be darker than himself fall to his knees. 

He had struck Five through the chest with a sign post he ruptured out of the concrete from one of the many blocks they'd plowed through as the stocky Garde’s blows and legacies knocked him off balance and battered his exposed body. 

When he had blacked out, it hadn't immediately occurred to him that Number Five had killed him. The darkness circling his vision, overtaking his conscious, felt too familiar to be physical; he was evil after all.

He had been ready to let them both go down like this that way.

Maybe it would have been better that way.

After all, if it only took Five to bring him to his knees, to kill him, and not someone with the power of Lorien like prophesied, so maybe he wasn't the reincarnation of Setrakus Ra after all. 

He could have rested easy then, and join his fellow brothers and sisters amongst the energy within the fray.

As he had drifted off, Nine knew he could rest knowing that he would not have to bare a hand against his fellow Garde.

He would not have to harm those gorgeous blue eyes. 

Then. As though time was gone with the instance of a snap.

Someone spoke.

_ “Give him to me.”  _

The words had sounded like an echo to him in his delusional state. 

He felt the soft touch of someone’s shaky hands. It's a brush of calloused skin along his face, splayed fingers running into his hair. The touch is gentle, adoring almost. Sad even.

The careful flow of someone else’s energy gently running through his veins, softly coating every part of his body. 

That feeling of someone healing him.

But who would want to after the mess they saw him make? After the damages he could not take back?

Someone started talking then. Their voice shook with as the speaker tried to remain calm, directing at someone else close by with closed threats Nine could only interpret from the raw emotion pouring out into the voice. 

He remembered how well he knew that voice. 

Its sound was always enough to kick his frail heart into a natural beat once more. 

Even then, John Smith, the boy always first to reach out his warm hands to Nine, had continued to heal him, to save his life. Continued to take every delusion his paranoia held onto and released him from its grips. 

Nine reached out and held onto the Garde who continued to pull him up from the hells he formed around himself, because the fact that John continued to stand beside him and help him when he broke proved there was more to his life than hallucinations.

He would not let himself be this weak and hopeless any longer.

When Nine finally moved himself to stand up instead of letting himself else pick him up, however, no one could have predicted John to fall down instead. Their biggest dreams, a Garde with the power of the ancient elder had finally awoken his potential. John was going to become the hero his bloodline destined him to be. 

Nine and the rest of the world all had seemed to watch at once as John’s power completely eclipsed all of their own abilities, borrowing the rarest and strongest of each of the Lorien powers and talents to defeat the monster that surfaced in the harbor.  

Prophecies had strange ways of realizing themselves. The one who bared resemblance to their most sacred elder would rise up to be greater than Pittacus himself.  

The one who would fill that role would be the victor, will be bathed in glory beyond their wildest dreams. They would lead the Garde to a new beginning, would save the galaxy from tyranny. It wasn’t for anyone who might abuse it. It wasn’t for Nine himself, and he was begrudgingly ok with it. 

The perfect hero.

The one who suffered the most.  

That call would change their prophecy. Because prophecies weren’t made for the Grade. Prophecies are for those who don’t want to trust their actions in themselves and beg for powers they do not understand to choose for them, those who believe in someone else’s plan for their every move no matter how unbearable or foolish it is.  

Nine fought so hard to become someone who believed in his own actions to the same degree because that way at least he had the power to choose what he wanted to be.  

He wanted to fight for himself, to be part of this family they’d worked so hard to form. He wanted to finally feel like he’d earned the right to be part of something more and not lament about being the one who might one day ruin it.  

He wanted to be in love and let himself love all over again, not despair about how everything was meant to be ruined.  

To Nine, it didn’t matter any longer that the one he cared for the most would never return those feelings to him. He’d gone this long without that kind of desire for reciprocation. Maddy was nothing compared to this feeling that has overtaken him since the day that his hero stood at the head of his destroyed jail cell; if he could starve from these feelings since then, he can bare it for longer if it meant that John could be safe. Could be saved from himself.  

No, he was afraid far more than that, fearful that the caring, strong Four he fell in love with all of those weeks ago was long gone by now. 

This new one was vile and cruel, seeking the pain of his enemy more so than the justice to save their new home. Even their closest friends couldn't get to the molten core that was John Smith.

Or perhaps he had become Number Four now. An inherited name. One that stands for the plain and simple Loric heritage they'd been granted, down to the bloodlust his beloved friend was gifted with and taught to by a culture with questionable morality and history- 

**No.**

No more hallucinations. 

Nine pulls himself from the deep, churning pit inside of his mind that his reminiscing made. He’s come too far to keep daydreaming like this. He had been storming off to find John after Sam warned the rest of them about the stability of the fourth Garde. He started off walking in a brisk pace, but broke out into a run the moment his mind wandered off to that spot he tries to sectioned off. The others were talking in defeated voices and he didn’t care what his quick leave looked like to them anymore.

Their comrade wanted to die.  

He couldn’t let it happen.  

They weren't their ancestors. There was no such thing as prophecies. Nine refused to believe that someone molded each and every Number sent to Earth into new forms of the Loric men and women that doomed their own people by waxing dark omens and letting the stars guide them to their own genocide. 

That's why they were supposed to be the victors of this war. Because they were different.  

Victors, not martyrs. Nine refused to believe this purpose of surviving this long was to die to protect a planet and race the Loric already forced to suffer long enough. 

Now all he had to do was convince the world’s most dangerous, desperate martyr to believe him. To trust him enough to save his own life. 

Perhaps it was for a selfish reason in the beginning, but Nine needed John to live until the end of this war. Their new world needed each and every one of them to live, to help Earth learn that its fate does not have to be up to a planet it's never heard of. Earth needs the hero it traumatized and rallied behind for what feels like so long now.  

His world would dim out completely if Number Four died at the end of this war.  

He had to stop him before he did something. He needed him.

Nine needed John. 

That old realization would reheat him every time it ever crossed his mind, it shook him almost as much as the deaths he'd seen and caused up until this point.

Even if there was ever a part of him that didn't give into his usually selfish behavior, Nine could go as far to say the world needed John Smith to bring it balance after this war was over. The people of the Earth who stood by and waited for them, the ones who took their powers and called to action, every damn fighter left needed their leader after the fight 

He’s forgotten to breath while he’s running. 

He had to get to him first, before John got to himself and fades out for good. 

He didn't just need him.  

Somehow, before the doorway of the room that John Smith put together the plan that outlined his final moments, Nine pulls himself together enough to put his usual facade up. He slows his tempo, takes several gulps of air, before building the will to enter his own personal hell. 

Nine catches the blonde playing with the noose he’d arrived back from Patience Creek in, studying it intently with those cold, emotionless eyes as he crafts something far more deadly with his bare hands. Eyes once so bright, so full of every piece John felt, now turned cold. Eyes so focused on the task at hand now that they didn’t even register Nine’s heavy footsteps or even a wink of his presence. 

Even here, watching this John concentrate on nothing but the huge battle just ahead, sent each of those warm, soft feelings through him.  

He loved him. Nine was in love with Four and he could finally admit it. 

Except. 

John didn't love him. 

He didn't love anyone anymore, he loved nothing more than winning this war now and feeling the break of his enemies under his bare hands. Nine was a path of coldness once too, he knew the look because he's felt the same things. 

Staring was uncharacteristic of him, so he knew he had to say something. He can’t demand John’s attention, he can’t let out everything that’s been turning over and over in his thoughts since he met the other Garde. 

_ “Badass.” _

So of course he compliments the weapon that John formed and turned over in his scarred palms.  

Their eyes meet. Nine forces a smirk. John’s face stays emotionless. 

Did he have it all wrong? 

The fresh blade floats over to Nine, like John is offering him to inspect what he had made. Like he wanted Nine’s approval for making a weapon fit for disembodying their enemy. 

He needed the monster to compliment his tool-

**Enough.**  

Nine does his best to swallow down the brief feeling of hurt that had just shot through his bloodstream; John didn’t realize what nerve he struck because Nine didn’t let him believe there were many sensitive spots to begin with. Nine’s best armor was the one of the blind soldier ready to die for a greater cause, of course John wanted him to talk battle strategies and offense with him. 

That’s all he ever wanted to do anymore.  

_“Not bad,”_ he concludes as he avoids the sharpness entirely, unable to get himself to say anything else about the blade that John crafted with every new sadistic feeling he felt.  

Except John’s cold, distant eyes were boring into him like they always used to. Had he seen that flinch from seconds ago, when Nine recovered from his own thoughts? He made no effort to show he’d seen anything at all. 

Nine sends the blade back over using his own telekinesis, hoping John also hadn’t noticed how quickly he was trying to rid even his abilities of the object.

But had the blonde Garde seen any of these things happen right in front of him, did he actually care was now the question. 

John’s voice cracks(barely, but enough that Nine who is trained to focus on John’s every move heard it) when his vacant-sounding tone asks _“what’s up”_ and Nine has to remind himself to breath. 

This would be their first, real conversation in weeks. He had to make it count. 

So he backtracked into all of those memories he had just replayed in his head on his way to this moment in time, into those things he kept trying to repress somewhere they wouldn’t cloud his judgment anymore.

And started apologizing for things that John would likely pass off as an atonement between soldiers but went far deeper than that. Apologies for the things he said and the things he did to cover up his consistent paranoia, to prove he grew to become more than the coward shackled to their beliefs. 

Some apologies remained hidden, such as for assuming the worst for the pair of them and assuming that being in love with Number Four was going to be the worst thing that ever happened to him.  

John’s eyes narrowed until he finally cut Nine off.  

_“If you’re going through all this because you think we might die down there, it’s not necessary.”_  

Was it the renowned elder Pittacus Lore that was the true villain of their story? 

The visions from Ella creep up momentarily. Pittacus and Setrakus talking about their work- 

No. Nine no longer wanted to dwell on fairy tales he just spoke into his shadow, tales of things he would never be able to prove. Tales he no longer wanted to believe in. Instead, he started to strive to live for the things he could easily prove and the things worth fighting for.  

Nine wasn’t from Earth. Nine was something called a Loric, more specifically a Garde, who occupied the last number on the mystical order the Elders placed on nine children, the only order which they could be killed in unless brought together. Nine mistook his number as his name and named himself Number Nine; Nine was also known as the quiet, Chicago area boy named Stanley Worthington who had a rich uncle with poor fashion sense and terrible social skills.  

Nine spent a full year of his life on Earth growing stronger and wanting to die for it because he believed his power would make him into a monster.  

Nine hated bullies. Nine hated people fighting his battles for him. 

Nine hated Mogadorians, with some exceptions.  

And Nine loved Number Four more than anything else on this planet.  

_ “There’s no might for me.” _

He holds that void, blank stare because turning his eyes off from John would be like turning his back on him and letting John go through with his goal.

Nine wasn’t some reimagined myth and neither was the other Garde before him.

_“I’m definitely living through this shit.”_  

His gaze never breaks from John’s. 

_“You on the other hand, you’ve got this whole fly-off-on-your-own-don’t-need-friends thing going on, like you’re just gonna rage until you burn out.”_  

The diluted color of his friend’s eyes doesn't change, but he takes a step back at the accusation. Nine continues on, he has to before it’s too late.

_“Like you don’t care what happens to you.”_  

He doesn't fight it. Any of it. That's what hurts Nine the most.

He tells him he understands because the tough, violent persona that Nine put on would say that but inside he wants to scream.

So he lets that quiet voice slip out for just a second. 

_“And also, you should know that I’d prefer it if you made it out of this alive with me.”_  

Nine hadn’t realized he started walking towards John when he started his speech at the other Garde until the last words were spoken practically into his face. His expression was nervous, like he was holding back every excuse he had to justify what his next   

And with a gentle flicker of light, those cold, blue eyes finally replied back.  

Instincts kick in and Nine finds himself pulling John into a brief but tight hug.

All Nine could believe in now was that his word was enough. 

\---

 

John spent two weeks recovering properly before disappearing all together.  
  
But not without the soft patter of footsteps Nine heard near his hospital bed that he just knew belonged to him and the hushed words ‘I'm sorry’ that Nine is still trying to translate into a language that makes any sense to him.  
  
Nine tried, he really did try to continue his life normally, but found it was hard to shape his new world without the person that helped make it all possible. The other Garde see through his heartache too easily; when had he become so open with all of these people? 

Or was his state of mind without Number Four that obvious? How many people knew he was _absolutely_ _in love with John?_  

Perhaps he should be proud of himself; after two long years of torture and trauma, he was finally opening up enough that his emotional distress was everyone else’s now as much as his own. 

It didn’t change one thing: how much he wanted to be this open and honest with _John_. 

Sam and Six seemed to be the most understanding about his longings, being a close knit relationship built through the impossible. Marina tried to be sympathetic as well, but she only grew to really understand John by sharing his pain with him in the last days of war and Nine knew that as well as she did. 

Ella appeared almost forlorn about the confession one night a few months after John’s sudden disappearance, but she stayed optimistic for him before she too went off on her own accord. 

Five acted the strangest about it, simply reminding Nine once and a while that he might be strong and smart in combat but sometimes he was just a plain fool. Instead of insults, Five started resorting to speaking in half riddles because he knew the vagueness would aggravate Nine far more, like he knew something Nine was barely a step away from.  

Nine still wants to strangle him. 

By month three, Nine decided to throw himself into his new job; he had the craziest doomsday preparation back with Sandor in Chicago, maybe he can translate some of that madness into something salvageable for the ones who were entrusted with Lorien’s might.  

Maybe he can use the things that haunted him to help others as well as distract him from the quietly growing hole in his chest.  

He learned fast that he didn’t have the patience to train children, but there was something he enjoyed enough about the Academy that he stayed. His class of rebellious, ungrateful teenagers got on his last nerve the most, even the ones from Patience Creek; how ironic.  

Because even the humans caught on to his misery. 

Daniela snickered and teased him when she caught on to him trying to use a story of John to teach a lesson on control. Nigel and Isabela flat out discussed their glowing opinions of John’s face and body in his ear shot whenever applicable; Kopano approached him after lecture with genuine concern for his health when he watched Nine drop a staff during a demonstration. Caleb and Fleur couldn’t be more bored by the constant teasing. Ran didn’t care and that’s why she would remain his favorite. 

Bertrand was the worst one of them all. He was the worst because he saw through it as well as the other Garde did. Maybe that’s why he didn’t berate or poke at Nine, because he saw the depth of the excruciating longing for what it was. On one particular night after an exhausting class debate over appropriate uses of Terric versus Externa, the boy from Germany caught Nine in his office after a sleepless night and listened as every little thing Nine felt over the past few months tumble out in a mess of cuss words and humorless jokes.

_“Then he leaves me with this shit. ‘I’m sorry’? For what, the fuck did you even do.”_  

Bertrand didn’t say anything until the very end when he was certain Nine finished with his rant.

_“You overthink a lot, Professor.”_  

Those five words echo in his thoughts so much that he considers adding Bertrand to the same list Five was on. Except, it was much harder to stay mad at the shy human Garde so he chooses to blame Five solely, because this moment in his life, now eight months later, feels the same as before, like he’s a breath away from discovering something that would finally answer his questions. 

Bertrand was always  _ John’s _ favorite.

\----

 

The year that passes after the war was the longest year of Nine’s life.  

The longest, most painful year of his life ends in an instant. It happens during a circuit workout lecture, having the group that morning juggle control over their telekinesis by using a serious of objects while staying in motion.  

Something in the air felt warmer. Brighter even. 

When a voice speaks up. 

_ “Look at this sellout, working for the gov-” _

He doesn’t let the voice finish before he’s pulling the intruder into the tightest, most telling hug he can manage with only one arm.  

Because he knows that voice, he knows this warmth. Because he spent the last year of his life hoping this person would finally come back to him. 

To him. Like he had any claim on where John came and went. 

The class stops to see what's happening.

_ “Johnny Hero, holy shit. You're here.” _

Those blue eyes were bright and full like they were before the chaos and Nine once again finds himself forgetting how to breath when the John he fell so hard for is so close to him. He’s growing facial hair, though Nine finds it patchy and unflattering. His hair is the same, messy dirty-blonde, if not longer than John liked to keep it.  

_“I'm here.”_  

Nine barks at his class to get back to what they were doing because he hates seeing the same brats who spent the last year picking at his turmoil watching everything happen. 

He turns back to face John but not before he sees Bertrand send a bright smile up at him as he turns back with the others. 

Nine mentally adds Bertrand to a different list in his wild mess of thoughts. 

John’s visit to the Academy is short but Nine revals in the fact that John wanted him to walk him through the progress made and that John let him lead.  

His hand was so close. If Nine just reached out to the side, his fingers would brush up against John’s. Would John reject him, turn and apologize for getting too close to bump against him? Would John read him like every other person has in the last year and politely confront him on how he doesn’t feel the same? 

_Would he return it?_  

_Could he?_  

After visiting with Malcom and Lexa, after checking on the Human Garde who stuck with him despite how he’d treated them, John was off again to do the same thing somewhere else. 

_With someone else._  

Was Nine the first stop so John could spend most of his time with someone else? A year was a long time after all, perhaps somewhere midst his travels he has finally met that person in his life that would give him everything. 

Nine takes his first sick leave in his year at the Academy the next day and spends his night staring at the stars. It’s also the first time since he was broken out of West Virginia that he remembers his appearance and violent nature. John saw him as a checklist, something to keep in order while he tended to the rest of the world and spent his time with people he truly cared about. 

Why else would he leave? 

_‘I’m sorry.’_  

Because he couldn’t be  _ honest with him? _

Maybe Nine knew that he himself wasn’t a monster, but John didn’t and now Nine never even had the chance to convince him otherwise. The way John looked at him, wide eyed and shocked, on the first day they met made so much sense all of a sudden, he saw what Nine had feared. How much he tiptoed around him when they were off on their own, how quick he was to brush Nine off when the Garde was together as a group.

It made  _ sense.  _

The realization hurts more than any injury he’s had before, he’d almost dare to say it hurt almost as much as losing Sandor and Maddy before his very eyes. 

It hurt as much as losing Eight, as much as watching John tear himself out of combat only because someone would ask him to think for himself once in a while. 

How pathetic, Nine thinks with mirth, that even when John hurts him the most, he still thinks about how much watching what John did to himself was one of the worst times in his life-

**Footsteps.**

Nine immediately stands on his feet and turns to face John. 

John.

Here. 

His guard drops as fast as he had braced for action because the sight of John always made him relax, no matter how much of a beast the fourth Garde sees him as.  

He doesn’t expect the lost yet determined look in John’s blue eyes and how they reflect the starlight around them. He doesn’t expect the tense posture plain across John’s shoulders and clenched fists, nor how his lips stretch into a frown. 

Nine goes to speak first, to accuse him or berate him, but John has him in a tight, warm hug with his face buried in Nine’s shoulder before he can say anything. 

The way John embraces him, circling his arms right around Nine’s chest, feels like coming home from war all over again. It's better than every fantasy he's ever had of this exact same moment, because this was real and happening.  

He returns it as soon as he comprehends it's happening, wrapping his arm around John.

They stand like that for what feels like forever. 

John breaks it first, meeting his eyes with a dust of red over his nose and cheeks. Nine holds his breath once again. 

_“I’m sorry I took so long to let myself go.”_  

Those times with Five and Bertrand come to mind. 

Because Five had watched John pick Nine up from the grave time and time again to save him even after all of the trouble Nine caused for them. Because Bertrand had seen them both at their most vulnerable and waited patiently for each of them to catch up. 

_“I’m sorry I never could tell you anything about me.”_  

After at first fighting and despairing it all, through learning through waiting and trusting this feeling, everything felt right. 

And when Nine leans to kiss John, the word right still can’t describe the perfect bliss. 

Two years later, after the defeat of every demon that threatened to suffocate him and break him apart, after Ra tried to take every simple thing from them, Nine is finally laying besides John with an arm wrapped tightly around John’s waist and his face buried flush in his now boyfriend’s messy blonde hair, reminiscing in something far stronger than darkness. 

_ “Don’t you get it? There’s no Pittacus Lore. No one is ever going to be some magical elder to save us all. There’s just each of us who came to Earth with a purpose, a promise, and we all saw it through to the end.” _

His eyes were as gentle as they ever were, his smile somehow softer, and Nine wanted to fall further into it all over again as John moves closer into his chest and Nine gathers him as close to his heart as he physically could. 

_Just us, here and now._  

That thing was always the Light, in the form of a legacy lit only by sparks and will power. The power at the fingertips of Nine’s most precious balance, both through his Lumen and his own kind of soothing energy.

**Author's Note:**

> If I don't hit send on this fic now, I'll revise it until I hate it and scrap it like I almost did for MONTHS now. I've been teasing this wip for AGES and never got anywhere on it because I wrote myself into a revision corner. I want to write less LL and more other fandoms and this fic is the big reason why I haven't written anything else in ages. 
> 
> Also hey, uh, long time no post, huh! I'm here! I'm just reading more than writing.
> 
> ([this is the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/pantstribe/playlist/7pyv5fBHWzZykmMNxqhaI8?si=a-guwoQiSpaqpWaXuUi-uA) that helped make this fic finally publishable, listen while reading, it's worth it)


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